The invention relates to printed sheet products for use as identification cards and the like and, in particular, to sets of uniquely encoded cards, tags, labels and other sheet elements.
A substantial market has developed in recent years for inexpensively manufactured, individually encoded, transaction cards for such uses as store credit cards, membership cards, I.D. cards, etc. The transaction cards typically bear the code in a bar format to permit automatic machine scanning of the card. Such cards typically are supplied in sets with one or more cards, labels, and tags, being supplied with each set and bearing the same individual code number.
Previously, it has taken many separate manufacturing steps to provide such sets. Perhaps the most efficient prior method has been printing in multiple steps, individual sheets of uniquely encoded, typically sequentially numbered, transaction cards, printing separate strips of release paper backed adhesive labels with the same, unique codes as the cards, in the same sequence of codes as the codes appear on the cards of the sheets, and attaching the strip(s) with the appropriate
code numbers to each sheet with the labels adjoining the like coded card(s).
In practice, this apparently simple, straightforward method required several labor-intensive steps. The appropriate labels for each sheet of cards were identified and applied by hand to the sheet so that the labels properly adjoin the associated transaction cards. Because this was done by hand, considerable time and effort was spent checking the final product to assure accuracy. In addition, because the transaction card sheets and label strips were printed separately, more time was needed to complete the task if the same printer is used to print the transaction card sheet and label strips. Alternatively, several printers must be available to simultaneously print the cards and the strips.
The twin problems of relatively high cost and errors associated with hand production of sets of plural related printed elements, all bearing some code unique to each set of elements, and numerous printing steps were solved by U.S. Pat. No. 4,978,146.
The present invention is also directed to improvements to the sheet products originally described in that patent.